


To Thrive

by jenaicompris



Series: What It Means [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Auntie Sole, F/M, Lots of Cursing, Marriage Is What Brings Us Together Today, Snipers, Starlight Drive-in, radiation, spoilers for the end of the game if you haven't finished it, stomach wound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:09:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22453939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenaicompris/pseuds/jenaicompris
Summary: Harper and her handsome ghoul husband make the rounds at the Starlight Drive-in; they run into a Wastelander that has a problem with their union and do the only thing that makes any sense to a woman that has fought tooth and nail to save her friends, family, and herself.
Relationships: John Hancock/Female Sole Survivor
Series: What It Means [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612750
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	To Thrive

**Author's Note:**

> My tenses, they are everywhere. Did that in the To Be Alive too. This is cross-posted from one of my five million tumblr accounts with some editing/add-ins.

It hurt Harper to look at John. Not for the reasons she imagined he would believe. He could have two heads – which could prove interesting, depending – or even four hands - which it already felt like he did - and it wouldn’t matter to her. It hurt because she loved him and knew, no matter what she did or said, he would never look in a mirror and see what she did.

Hancock was all she had to keep her grounded in the aftermath of discovering what had become of her nephew. She was still trying to work out how to keep the Institute running but align more with her beliefs. It was a waste of an opportunity to destroy it and so she was doing her best to keep everyone at bay in the meantime. It was growing more difficult and she felt stretched too thin as it was. Shaun, her nephew, was dying of cancer in a hospital bed inside the Institute. He wanted her – Harper – to take over the place that she had been trying to become a part of over two hundred years ago. He wanted her – _Harper_ – to save humanity the way he thought it needed to be saved.

She was a fair sight bolder and more confident than she had been when she had stepped out of Vault 111 nearly two years before but she was still impossibly _her_.

Shaking thoughts of what felt like the futility of their efforts and instead smiling brightly, she leaned into Hancock and slid her fingers through his, as they walked by the turrets that protected the main entrance to what had once been the drive-in theater. It was surrounded by a fence of scrounged material, both sides connecting against the drive-thru screen at the far end of the parking lot.

Now, most settlers at this stage in the game knew both who Harper was and how she felt about any amount of intolerance, regardless of the target.

Unfortunately for one man in particular, the word had somehow not spread to him.

Harper and Hancock wandered around the settlement, checking the garden and water purifiers respectively. His immunity to radiation poisoning was helpful in this regard. They checked the fencing and the turrets, Hancock making a cheeky remark about her backside as he observed her walking up the stairs from behind. They brought cigarettes to the snipers on the roof of the screen’s wall and news of the Commomwealth, stopping in to see how Harper’s projector was working. They had one of the heaviest defenses on the Starlight Drive-In because she was committed to playing movies every so often. It was such a simple thing to provide, especially when they found holotapes in the library or in old houses and it brought so much joy. There were snipers every ten feet along the wall that surrounded the drive-in, a warning barrier around the irradiated water in the center because Harper still hadn’t figured out how to fix it, as well as traps and turrets keeping the perimeter safe.

The two of them headed back to what had once been the ticket office, splitting briefly again for Hancock to speak to a merchant (known for her chem concoctions) and for Harper to procure something for the two of them to eat. This settlement was more for luxury and entertainment than the maintenance of the others. It was meant to give them a little bit of a break from the monotony of fear and hard work.

Setting two places of radstag and tato soup on the rickety picnic table, Harper overheard only a small portion of a conversation.

“…I’m just saying, it’s a fuckin’ shame, a stunner like that being a dirty ghoul fucker.”

Harper’s eyes widened briefly before narrowing in rage. She stood slowly, quietly, and drew her 10mm without a sound. Approaching from the side, she heard the two men in heated discussion about how good she would taste if she wasn’t ‘tainted’.

“’Scuse me,” she smiled sweetly, tapping the man who had spoken so _emphatically_ about her love life on the shoulder. “I think I overheard you compliment my appearance?”

His face, ruddy with sun and radiation, tightened at the intrusion but relaxed at the sweet sound of her voice. He looped his thumbs where his belt should have been and his hips rocked forward. When Hancock did it, it endeared her (or turned her on); this guy was three seconds from eating lead.

“Uh, yeah, I was. I was just saying you would be better off with me.”

“Now,” Harper’s smile, sweet but hiding anger, turned flirtatious while she leaned in a little. Her gun, as yet unseen, hovered by the man’s side without touching. “I don’t think that’s _exactly_ what you said. Tell me again, _I like dirty talk._ ”

The man’s face flushed a little at her proximity and attention, bringing his face just a little closer. “I said…you’re damn gorgeous and I bet you taste so damn sweet, it’s too bad you’re a dirty _ghoul_ _fucker_.”

The second the last syllable left his lips on rancid breath, the barrel of Harper’s gun pressed against his side. Her sweet smile turned malicious and her unencumbered hand wrapped around his throat.

Normally, she wasn’t a particularly intimidating presence. With the fire of rage in her eyes, however, the man all but pissed himself.

Hancock, turning back in her direction after completing his purchase, took strides as long as his legs would allow to reach her without causing a commotion. When he drew close enough to see she quite clearly had the upper hand, he slowed to his typical saunter.

“What seems to be the trouble, kitten?” He slid his thumbs through the belt loops on trousers worn by the American hero some five hundred years before. The juxtaposition of the two men repeating the same action only further solidified Harper’s ill will towards the despicable man at the end of her gun’s barrel.

“This man appears to have a problem with our relationship, love,” Harper squeezed the perpetrator’s neck and pressed her gun closer, just to prove she could. The man that had joined the other in conversation was blathering apologies. Harper didn’t spare him a look when she murmured, “Kindly shut up, unless you would like to be next.” At which point his mouth snapped closed.

She released his grimy neck and grasped the collar of his shirt. “Now. You will apologize to my _husband_ for your foul language or I will put a bullet in your gut. It _will_ kill you, and **slowly**. Am I understood?”

He glared at her for a second, in response to which she jammed her gun into his side, wishing it was a revolver for the satisfying ‘click’ cocking it would provide. He grunts and shifts his gaze to Hancock.

“Sorry,” he blurts, sounding anything but.

Immediately after, Harper lifted her knee _hard_ into his groin. He drops, clutching his family jewels, and groans out a curse.

“I said _apologize_ ,” she speaks, her voice sickly sweet. “Try again or it won’t be my knee meeting your dick.” She has the gun pointed at his face when he looks up at her.

“I’m _sorry_ , okay? Fucking _Christ_.”

“Better,” Harper smiles wide and waves her gun a little to indicate Hancock, who is watching with what would have been his eyebrows raised and a small smile on his lips. “Now, apologize to _him_. And you can call him _Mayor_ Hancock.”

“I’m **sorry** Mayor Hancock,” he coughs, struggling to get to one knee.

“Good, good. Now we can all be friends. And you will apologize to _every_ highly irradiated person that you meet for being a prejudiced ass until there isn’t a one in the whole Commonwealth that hasn’t heard you say you’re sorry.” She leans a little closer, her smile absolutely manic. “Understood, fucker?”

He grunts in acknowledgement and nods once, at which point she pats him on the shoulder and lowers her gun.

Harper moves over to Hancock and leans into him, pressing a kiss to his cheek. She relishes in the feel of is skin against the tender flesh of her lips and kisses him again, unable to help herself. His arm curves around her thin waist, warm hand settled on her hip and she grins. The small crowd that had amassed mostly consists of scattered clapping – the most emphatic being from the few ghouls that chose this place as home.

The man grunted again as he stood, struggling to his feet. “Stupid bitch,” he spat under his breath, turning towards her with a grimace on his face. Harper saw his hand move for his gun and her shot was off before the weapon made it completely off his belt.

The wound in his stomach caused him to stumble, his gun clattering to the broken cement. Harper frowned as she disconnected from Hancock, sorry for the loss of his comforting heat at her side, moving closer. First, she kicked his gun away. She approached closer and pointed her gun at his head, arm unwavering.

“You **shot** me!” he half-groaned, half-shouted as he pressed his hands against his stomach as if to stop the bleeding.

“I did,” she replied evenly, her face all but blank. “I _warned_ you.”

“I apologized, you cunt!” The blood seeped through the layer of his fingers, his face growing pale.

“You clearly didn’t mean it. An apology only works if you’re repentant. And that clearly wasn’t the case.”

“Are you just going to leave me here?” his face is ghostly now, blood pooling in small amounts around him as his voice grows weaker.

“Don’t worry, sugar,” she smiles that sickly-sweet smile again, gun never so much has shaking. “It won’t be too long.”

He slowly slumped lower and lower, until he no longer had the strength to hold his hands against the bullet hole or behind him for support.

As he died, dreadfully slowly, on the cracked pavement of a lifetime passed, Harper moved back to stand with Hancock. She checked over her shoulder every so often, to ensure that he was still, in fact, bleeding out. “Part of me wants to stim him, just to shoot him again,” she frowned a little, sliding her body to fit along his side.

“Best not waste it, kitten.”

So she doesn’t.


End file.
